


Trading Ashes for Gold

by mousapelli



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, Skype, Slow Burn, growth spurts are the worst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-05 09:25:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10303412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mousapelli/pseuds/mousapelli
Summary: Yuri's growth spurts are finally starting, just as awful as advertised, but it isn't like you can build something better without burning the old thing down to the ground.At least, he doesn't know how to do it any other way.





	1. St. Petersburg

**Author's Note:**

> Seems like this is going to turn out in discreet chunks, so might as well post the first part because I haven't changed anything about it in ages while I poke at the second on. 
> 
> Given that canon seems to be the 2014-2015 Grand Prix season, I'm using details from the 2015-16 season for this rather than making them (which is silly to do since what Kubo does is line-by-line for real life anyway), if you assume that among other people, Yuri is Julia Lipnitskaya (he REALLY is), Otabek is Denis Ten, and Yuuri is Yuzuru Hanyu. 
> 
> Starts spring/summer of 2015, after competition season is over, so Yuri is 16.

In the middle of the night, Yuri wakes to the sharp ache of his shins, disoriented from being asleep too deeply. After a minute, the ache resolves itself more clearly into his shin on one side and his knee on the other, all the more irritating because it isn't symmetrical. Yuri growls and tries to stretch, but nothing helps. He knows instinctively that this is different than the usual shin splints or practice aches he carries around every day. 

His growth spurt has started. _Finally_ , he thinks, not because he wanted it to arrive but because he's sick of dreading it, sick of worrying about which tournaments the worst of it will fuck up, if there will even be tournaments on the other side for him to fuck up. 

He could get up and take some painkillers. He could get the heating pad. Yuri does neither, just lies on his back with one leg kicked out from the covers (the one with the sore knee) and glares at the ceiling hating everything. It feels more satisfying to just lie there and whine about it childishly. 

His phone is charging beside his pillow, cord trailing off the bed to the outlet; Yuri makes a grab for it and squints angrily at the way the sudden blue light blinds him. 

[im dying] he texts Otabek without any other explanation. He waits ten seconds, then ten more, knowing full well Otabek has only gone to bed a few hours ago and definitely isn't going to answer. [im dying and you dont even care]

Dropping his phone on its face, Yuri rolls over onto his stomach and stretches his feet, as if he's going _en pointe_. It helps a bit more than the other way, and Yuri flexes and points until his calves are trembling, on the edge of cramping. It's not any more pleasant, but at least its different and more familiar. 

"I hate you," he grumbles into his pillow, talking mostly to his body. He's starting to get cold from being half out of the blankets, and he yanks them back over himself carelessly, grumpy that they're tangled but doing nothing to fix it, and falls asleep that way, on his face. 

In the morning there's a message from Otabek asking if he's feeling better and summarily ignoring Yuri's bluster about how much Otabek does or doesn't care. 

[no] Yuri sends back, still in a pique. In case the depth of his angst is not clear, he sends a sticker of a hissing cat. Otabek sends back, somewhat cryptically, that Yuri should eat more eggs. [ur an egg] he sends back, and then drops his phone in disgust and goes to try to shower the ache out of his calves. 

It doesn't work. He's been on the ice for less than an hour when Lilia stops him and seizes his face the same way she had the day they met, inspecting him closely. Her palms feel ice cold, and Yuri realizes he must be running a slight fever. Banished to the side of the rink to replenish his sugars while Lilia confers with Yakov, Mila takes one look at him and laughs uproariously when Yuri growls that growing up is the worst. 

Yuri squeezes his juice box to squirt orange juice at her from the straw. 

*****

Yakov's summer camp is a welcome distraction this year from the ever-deepening well of Yuri's frustration with himself. Sure, it's a lot of bother and some chaos, and now that he's out of juniors Yuri is expected to help out more with the practices rather than sulk at the back of them, but even if Yuri has to relearn how to spin every fucking week, at least he isn't half so helpless as some of these brats. 

"Arch your back," he tells one dark-haired boy at the barre, thinking of what Lilia would say to see this trainwreck, tsk. "Arch, I said, not strain."

"That's as far as it goes!" the kid puffs, breathless and red-faced from holding it even that long. Yuri's hands are on him without thinking, correcting his stance and pulling him up another two centimeters at least. 

"Liar," Yuri says. "Don't move." And then he turns away and doesn't look back, wondering with dark amusement how long that kid will do exactly that before he either tips over or realizes Yuri isn't coming back. Later that night on Skype with Otabek, Yuri tells the story with unfiltered glee, and Otabek shakes his head with a small smile and tells Yuri that he's the worst, that he should never be a coach. 

Yakov even asks Yuri what he thinks of some of the participants, for the first time Yuri can recall, but he does it casually as they're watching them warm up in the morning, with no hint that something new or strange is going on. Yuri gives his unfiltered opinion, which is that two, perhaps three, have potential, but the rest he can no more imagine skating at the Grand Prix than he can imagine Yakov and Lilia ice dancing. 

"Show me which ones," Yakov asks, giving exaggerated scoffs at the first and the third, but only a soft _tcht_ at the second. He claps his hands to call an end to warm-ups, shoving Yuri out onto the ice, and Yuri thinks no more about it for the last four days of the camp. 

The best part about camp is that eventually all of the strangers go home, leaving everything as it was before. This year everyone goes home except for one; Yakov tells them that with Victor having a student of his own, there's space enough for a new student, and Yuri's world resettles back on its axis but with a slight wobble, not entirely steady. 

Nothing is steady, he thinks to himself with gritted teeth as he wobbles through a triple axel that he could have done blindfolded over sharks last season. He's grown 2cm this month, it's all in his arms, and he wants to strangle Dmitry Vasiliev with them nearly every waking moment. 

"That's his name," he sneers to Victor over the phone. He's walking home despite the distance and the soreness of his hips, just so he can bitch to Victor in privacy, and also so that he can kick a lot of rocks. "D-MI-try Vasili-EV," he repeats, giving it a snobbish sort of emphasis, like the kid is a foreign emissary being introduced at a ball. 

"Not the baby anymore, hm?" Victor asks. It's affectionate and knowing, and it nearly makes Yuri's hair stand on end with misplaced rage. "What's he like?"

"Horrible," Yuri spits, thinking about how he pointed out Dmitry to Yakov himself, about Yakov's thoughtful _tcht_. "He's not worth all this fuss. He's not even cute!"

"He must be adorable for you to be this angry about it already," Victor says. "Try not to be too furious with him, hm? I'm sure the change is hard for him as well."

"It's not hard, it's just annoying!" Yuri pauses, foot skimming past the rock he was aiming at. Had the others thought he was annoying when he first moved to the rink? It's hard to think of Victor being jealous of anyone, least of all him. "Is this how you felt when I started at the rink?"

"Change is always hard," Victor says without really answering head-on, a typical Nikiforov deflection. "Try not to take it out on the new one. He must know well enough already that he's the source of the unbalance."

Yuri tries, he does. He tries to focus on himself and his jumps and his spins and how _none of his fucking pants fit_ , but the first time he hears Yakov call Dmitry "Misha" across the ice, Yuri has to stomp outside and lean against the back wall of the rink until the wind cools his cheeks off a little. 

It's too much, it's all too much. He won't stop fucking growing and Russia isn't big enough to contain him, like a hormonal godzilla. Time to call the Mothra Twins. 

"Please let me stay with you," he mutters into the phone as soon it's picked up. "I can't fucking take it here."

"O-oh!" Yuuri's voice is a surprise, but when Yuri pulls the phone away from his face to check, yeah, he called Victor's number. Ugh, couples. But maybe it's better because Yuuri doesn't tease or ask any questions, just says warmly, "You're welcome any time, you know that. Forward us the flight email and I'll send Victor to get you so you don't have to ride the train. He just got his Japanese license, did he tell you? He's a menace with right turns." Yuuri insults Victor with such obvious affection that it loosens Yuri's shoulders at the same time as it makes him want to retch. "Do you want me to put Victor on the phone?"

"No, I…" Yuri takes a breath and lets it out. "I feel better. He'll just piss me off again."

"Hnn." Yuuri makes one of those Japanese noises that means seventeen different things. "How's the growth spurt?"

" _Awful_ ," Yuri says neither elaborating nor sugarcoating. He's only ever this upfront with Otabek or Yuuri, and he's never sure how Yuuri drags it out of him. It's a small relief to voice the discomfort, though.

"I remember. I used to spend hours in the onsen." Yuuri's words call up a memory of scalding heat and the metallic tang of minerals, and Yuri nearly cries with longing. "Take care, all right?" Yuuri tells him before he hangs up. "Stretch. Breathe."

Yuri knows that Yuuri means for it to be advice about taking care of his physical condition, but instead it's what he hears in his head every time he's about to lose his temper for the rest of the week. Stretch. Breathe. Stretch. Breathe. 

In the time they've been working together, Yuri has take more than one long trip, just like the first time he flew to Japan. Most coaches would object, Yuri is sure, but the truth is that him spending a month in Hasetsu or Almaty is better in the long run for all of them. After three or four months all three of them work each other's nerves, Yuri needling Yakov, Yakov setting Lilia's teeth on edge, Lilia getting under all of Yuri's skin. Yuri being away gives them all a break, and it isn't like Yuri goes to those places and just fucks around. He still trains, he still spends his hours on the ice. They'd had a talk about it once, after Yuri had come back from Hasetsu the first time, but Yakov had been surprisingly forward-thinking in his opinion that with technology making it so easy to talk or send video, it hurts nothing for Yuri to take advantage of resources in various places. 

It probably didn't hurt that at the moment Yakov was busy splitting his time between too many students anyway. If 'splitting' meant two-thirds of his time were absorbed by darling, bird-light _Misha_ and his newly-hatched triples. 

"Hasetsu again?" Otabek asks when Yuri answers his Skype call to reveal a heap of half-packed things strewn across his bed. "Would that I could be so free-spirited."

Yuri pauses in the middle of trying on a pair of sweats to see if they're still long enough. "Do you want to? You could, y'know, come visit. You haven't ever been, right?"

"I've been to Japan," Otabek says, a touch defensive. "I went to Sapporo in Juniors, and Nagasaki."

"Just for competition, right? Not for real. Tell me what food you ate in Nagasaki, go on," Yuri prods, business-like. He knows how to tell if somebody's visited a country properly.

"Probably sushi or something, I don't remember."

"Bzzzt," Yuri cuts in like a gameshow host for Otabek's unfortunate answer. "In Nagasaki, the right answer is champon, although I guess I have to give you half credit for seafood generally. But hey, I mean it? Katsudon's family runs a whole inn, and they're insanely nice." Yuri pauses because he really wants Otabek to do it, but he doesn't want to push it hard enough to seem weird. "Last time I stayed almost a month, so you can think about it for a while. You could still train. I just…it would be nice to see you."

Otabek snorts softly, so the last words must have been the ones that hit the mark. "My coach calls you a bad influence."

"For telling you to live your life?" Yuri blows a raspberry. "Sooo sorry."

Otabek shifts in his seat, looking sheepish. "Well, she has told me off twice this week for being glued to my phone when I'm supposed to be stretching."

"Yeah?" That makes Yuri grin, warmth spreading across his chest. He's trying play it cool, this thing with Otabek, but then Otabek goes and says some shit like that. 

"I'll think about it," Otabek promises. "Now that I'm not traveling for training anymore, maybe traveling for the sake of it would be fine."

"The food alone is worth it, trust me," Yuri urges, then laughs when Otabek reminds that not everybody can burn off thousands of kilocalories just by sitting around and growing. 

"Safe flight," Otabek wishes him when they're about to sign off; he knows better than to try and stay up until Yuri finishes packing. The Wednesday night all-nighter is nobody's friend. "During the flight you should eat a banana."

Yuri rolls his eyes because Otabek's food advice gets weirder all the time. Without thinking, he grumbles, "I'll eat your banana all right," and then freezes, the jeans in his hand slipping out of his fingers. _What the fuck, brain?_

Nothing happens for two seconds, three, four. Maybe Otabek didn't hear that. Yuri glances cautiously back towards his laptop, where Otabek has the tiniest, _cutest_ blush across his nose. It sends Yuri's blush reflex into overdrive, creeping up the back of his neck and burning his ears. 

"You didn't hear that," Yuri growls, threatening. 

"I did, though," Otabek says, because this idiot has no idea when to shut up and pretend nothing happened like a decent human being. 

"You _didn't_ ," Yuri insists, because he can't do this right now, not when Otabek is about to sign off and has practice in seven hours, and in ten Yuri is going to board a plane taking him even further away than he already is. Then Yuri swallows hard and throws what little dignity he ever had in a heap on the floor, where half his clothes are. He wasn't using it anyway. "Unless you're really coming to Hasetsu."

Otabek's face is flat neutral, except for the blush still. Yuri has learned this means he's thinking about something carefully. "If I'm there in person, you mean?" Yuri nods. "Then we can talk about it?"

Yuri backpedals immediately. "There's nothing to--"

"About how you call me on Skype just to say things I'm not meant to hear?" Otabek interrupts. He's so fucking blunt about it, Yuri throws himself down on his bed and gives a low yowl like his cat does, half-whine, half-complaint. "Or make cat noises."

"No one's forcing you to answer!" Yuri snaps. 

"No one's forcing you to call me," Otabek retorts. He's getting a little annoyed himself, which Yuri finds satisfying. He hates fighting with somebody he can't get worked up too, like when he shouts at Victor. But then Otabek takes a deep breath and blows it out his nose, centering himself. Asshole. "I want to talk about it. But only if you're ready."

"I'm not ready for _anything_ ," Yuri explodes, rolling over to spit venom at his laptop screen, half a breath from just slamming it shut. "Not for Skate America or Grand Prix or Nationals or Worlds or whatever the _fuck,_ " Yuri's voice cracks, "THIS is. Look at me! I'm not even ready for TOMORROW." 

Surrounded by clothing and half-packed luggage, Yuri twists fingers tight into his comforter and drags one ragged breath after another, teetering right on the edge of just letting the angry tears at the back of his throat spill over. It's the hormones, a thing he can't control when he feels overwhelmed lately. 

"Don't cry," Otabek says, even though Yuri isn't. He looks apologetic. "I'm sorry I said anything."

"Shut up." Yuri sits up and hugs his knees to his chest. "Shut the fuck up. If you want to talk about it, come see me. And if you don't want to, come anyway. Anyway, hang up and go to sleep. Your coach already hates me."

"She doesn't. Are you angry with me?" Otabek asks. He's leaning in a little, trying to scrutinize Yuri's face through the rough touch of pixels and distance. Yuri hides his face down lower behind his knees. 

Yes, is the answer, and no. That's the way it is with Yuri these days, he's angry always, at everything, and whatever it is he feels about Otabek, it's so much easier the times when it seems like anger too. It's too hot and too big, too much for anything else. 

"You're the person I want to murder least right now," Yuri tells him, and even that is more of an admission than is safe. "Try to keep it that way."

"Seems impossible, but I like difficult things," Otabek says. There's a smile lurking at the corner of his mouth, so dangerous, just before Yuri hangs up on him.


	2. Hasetsu

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to have all of Hasetsu be the same chapter, but this seemed to hit a natural endpoint, so I thought I'd just throw it down.

Yuri has a pretty good hate on for airports in general, and how they seem to concentrate all the worst impulses and smells of humanity into the smallest echoing space possible, but Japanese airports aren't the worst. He feels almost affectionate towards Fukuoka's airport, perhaps because he's always there because he wants to be, perhaps because as soon as he clears baggage claim he knows there will be a vending machine with the much-longed-for canned coffee milk. 

"It won't actually stunt your growth, you know," Yuuri's voice says behind him. Yuri gives an unimpressed stare over his shoulder; Yuuri's nose scrunches with the force of his smile. "Welcome back."

Yuri doesn't answer, "I'm home," but it feels that way, just a little. When he straightens up, he realizes they are almost eye-level for the first time. He hands Yuuri the can of coffee milk and turns to get another one for himself.

"I'm not supposed to drink these," Yuuri says cheerfully, already cracking the top open. "Victor banned me after the first week back here."

"I know, idiot, you live-tweeted your whole withdrawal." Yuri rolls his eyes. Yuuri's already got the can to his mouth, eyes glittering with sugar addiction, and Yuri holds out his own can to clink against Yuuri's, toasting to their joint thwarting of Victor. "But seriously, hurry up with that, any minute that asshole is going to—"

"YUUUUUUURI," Victor's voice echoes from down the terminal. 

"Here we go," Yuri groans, rolling his eyes as Yuuri throws half the coffee milk back like a shot and comes up spluttering. 

The incriminating evidence is safely disposed of in the recycling bin by the time Victor descends on them, squeezing Yuri tightly like he's a beloved but long-lost childhood toy and hollering about how much he's grown. 

"Victor, we're in public," Yuuri scolds, but he doesn't make any move to actually stop his fiancé from making a scene. "Save it for the car."

"That's what you always say," Victor sighs, making Yuri wrinkle his nose and struggle even harder to get free. 

Once in the car, Victor casually leans across the gap between the driver's side and passenger's side to kiss Yuuri firmly. 

"Just as I thought," Victor says when he pulls away, eyes narrowed. He licks his lower lip, no doubt perfectly able to taste the last of the coffee. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were _trying_ get punished."

"No thank you!" Yuri pipes up from the backseat, kicking the back of Victor's seat. Victor looks over his shoulder, eyebrow raised, while Yuuri covers his face with his hands, blushing and snickering at the same time. "No PDA in front of me! Save it for your room, ew."

"And here I expected you to try and room inside my closet again," Victor comments, throwing the vehicle into reverse. Yuri kicks his seat again, harder. 

Victor is a complete menace on the road, as Yuuri warned. Yuuri's smalltalk questions and Yuri's grudging answers have strange pauses as they both grip the door handles and grit their teeth every time Victor sails through a turn. Yuri can barely text Otabek that he's been collected safely, eyes blurring from jetlag and low-grade car sickness. 

[or i was safe b4 i got in this car]

[Please don't die. It will make my visit awkward.]

Yuri sits up straighter, bringing the phone closer to his nose to make sure he's read it right. [ur coming????] 

[I think so. Let's talk when I'm home tonight. Will you still be up?]

[yeah sure idk. call anyway]

[Oh, I plan to fully enjoy you being on the butt end of the time difference for once.]

"Fuck you," Yuri grumbles. 

"Yuri-kun?" Yuuri asks. He's twisted around to look into the back seat when Yuri looks up, and he realizes Yuuri must have been asking him something. 

"Sorry, what?" Yuri asks, dimming his phone screen on reflex from so many years of snooping rink mates. 

"I was saying that we thought you could stay in my old room, since Victor and have been sharing his. Is that all right? It's out of the way so it's a little more private." Yuuri's eyes flick down to Yuri's phone and back again, and if he's trying to hide his smile, he's doing a piss-poor job of it. "But if Altin-kun is coming to visit, it might be too small."

"Who says he's doing that?!" Yuri demands, alarmed. 

"There's only four people in the world you text with, two of them are in this car, and you don't smile when it's Yakov." Yuuri grins at Yuri's spluttering. "But also Altin-kun emailed to ask if it was all right to visit and whether I could possibly spare a moment to look at his choreography. So polite! I wish he would rub off on you."

"He better not be rubbing off on you!" Victor shouts, turning to glare, ignoring Yuuri's snapped, "Eyes on the road!"

"I am THROWING MYSELF OUT OF THIS CAR," Yuri announces, and he would too, except Yuuri wisely has the child safety locks turned on in the backseat. Instead he settles for texting Otabek a bolded [ **TRAITOR** ]. The 'read' notification doesn't pop up, which means Otabek turned his phone off for practice already, and Yuri throws his phone down on the seat with another huffed, "Traitor!"

They make it to the Katsuki Yu-topia in one piece, somehow. As they're kicking off their shoes in the entryway, Yuuri reaches over to strip the backpack from Yuri's shoulders. 

"Eh?" Yuri asks, but lets him, because his shoulders are sore from lugging it through multiple airports. 

Yuuri tilts his chin the direction of the hot springs. "Go on. You're dying to, right? It's the middle of the afternoon so you'll probably have it to yourself."

Yuri doesn't need told twice; he's off like a shot, leopard-print socks sliding on the smooth wood floors as he all but dashes towards the men's entrance. He strips his clothing off in record time and shoves it in one of the cubbies before taking an equally fast shower, not even bothering to sit down on the plastic stool. When he pushes open the sliding door, the metallic smell of minerals from the onsen water is the most welcome thing he's ever smelled, except for his grandfather baking, of course. 

The water is scalding. Yuri's lost the tolerance he'd built up the last time he visited, but it doesn't stop him. He hisses as he steps in carefully, not wanting to add a concussion to his list of problems, and doesn't stop until he's shoulder-deep in the cloudy water. If he holds perfectly still, still as a statue, it doesn't hurt. Yuri lets his eyes flutter shut, concentrating on the feel of the heat sinking into his aching muscles and joints and ligaments, and it has the effect of clearing out his mind too. It's the closest Yuri ever gets to meditating, this stillness as he adjusts to soaking. 

Or it least it would be if Victor fucking Nikiforov didn't plop himself down beside Yuuri, splashing drops of scalding water up Yuri's cheek. 

"The minerals aren't so good for your hair, you know," Victor says, and when Yuri opens his eyes just to glare, Victor is sitting on the edge of the water, holding out a hair elastic. Usually Yuri ties it up, but he'd been in too much of a hurry, so it's trailing into the water. It's gone past his shoulders in this year he's been growing it out, but only just barely; it's so thin he has to keep having the split ends trimmed. 

"I'm not moving," Yuri announces. "You do it."

"Spoiled brat," Victor says, but he's already reaching to do it, combing the strands back from Yuri's face with his fingers. He's good at it, as if he still remembers having long hair himself, but Yuri still keeps his expression as neutral as he can; it's a strangely intimate act, and it makes Yuri feel weird if he enjoys it obviously. Victor's hands draw his hair into a loose but serviceable bun and secure it with the elastic. He pats it once, as if that will help set it, before his touch disappears. "Shall we talk about how you should take this year off?"

"No, we shan't," Yuri replies, imitating Victor's intonation. Victor's over-light tone makes it sound like they're ladies having a garden tea party. Victor opens his mouth, and Yuri snaps, "If the next words out of your mouth are 'when I was sixteen…'"

"When I was sixteen," Victor says pleasantly, talking right over Yuri's groaning, "I took off everything after Nationals, and I came back the next season rested and in much better form."

"That's because you dislocated your knee! Twice!" Yuri protests. He makes an aggravated noise as Victor slides into the water fully, the slosh of the water renewing the too-hot feeling of the water. "Stop moving! It's too hot!" 

"I certainly did," Victor says reflectively. "Because I was still practicing too much after Yakov and everyone else told me to stop, when all of my tendons and joints were stretching and at their weakest. But now I can tell the weather forecast by how that knee aches. So useful!"

"I'm more flexible than you, I'm being careful," Yuri grumbles. "I didn't come here for more lecturing."

"We'll see in the morning, won't we?" Victor says. Yuri's shoulders relax the tiniest bit at the news that Victor isn't going to try and keep him off the ice. "Shall we talk about how amazingly shitty your choreography for your short is instead?"

"Oh, do let's," Yuri sighs. If he half-tunes Victor out while he's rambling, it's not even that unpleasant. It doesn't take any input from him anyway when Victor's like this; Victor mainly just wants an excuse to talk his ideas through out loud, and Yuri can keep him going by mumbling only an occasional "uh-huh" or "hmm." 

He's adjusted to the heat enough that he can cautiously stretch out his legs, the shape of them hazy through the onsen's water, his skin bright pink from the heat. For just this moment, nothing aches very much, and Yuri is afraid if he so much as breathes wrong the relief of it will pop like a soap bubble. It feels _so good_. 

Victor's voice blends in with the noise of cicadas and the lapping of the water against their shoulders, and Yuri doesn't realize he's teared up until Victor cuts off abruptly. 

"Yurochka?" Victor asks, snapping Yuri out of it. Victor hasn't called him that in ages. "Are you all right? You're crying."

"Fuck. Yeah." Yuri reaches up to scrub the wetness away from his cheek, which is funny because his hand is wet too. "It just happens. It's nothing." Victor makes the 'go on' noise that he's picked up from Yuuri. Yuri sighs, letting his hand flop back down. Victor's seen him cry before. "My legs stopped hurting. It's the first time in months. I tried everything and nothing made it stop. This is the only thing."

Victor stretches his arm out across the stones behind them, almost but not quite around Yuri's shoulders. "I love it here too."

They're both quiet for a minute, and then Victor goes back to talking about choreography. 

The situation, as Yuuri explains over dinner, is that Victor is using early morning rink time at Ice Castle Hasetsu, since he's an unapologetic morning person, while Yuuri is taking the later hours, after the public skate hours are done for the day. They decide Yuri should go with Victor in the morning, taking advantage of the window before Yuri re-adjusts totally to the time difference. Yuri is already yawning after the excellent welcome back dinner Yuuri's mother made for him. He drags himself back to Yuuri's old room and barely manages to plug in his phone and text Otabek that they'll have to Skype the next day before he's out like a light. 

Of course that just means he's awake at some ungodly hour, unable to fall back asleep. Giving it up, he pads his way towards Victor and Yuuri's room to see if he's up yet. It's barely light when Yuri and Victor leave Yuuri a snoring heap in the center of Victor's bed, Makkachin curled up over Yuuri's feet protectively. 

"You don't have to share your rink time with me," Yuri says as they're warming up. "I can find my own time. I can come later with Katsudon, when you're here to coach anyway."

Victor shrugs him off. "It's nice to have someone else here. It's too quiet alone! Let's start with a game."

The "game" is that practice starts with Yuri testing out which jumps he's able to do on any given day. 

"Single toe loop," Victor says. Yuri scoffs, disbelieving, and suddenly Victor's eyes are like ice. "Did it sound like I was asking? If you land it cleanly, take a lap, then a double, then a lap, and so on. If you fall or touch down, you can only do jumps with fewer rotations for that practice. Understand the rules?"

"Whatever, old man," Yuri grumbles as he skates away, still thinking to himself _single toe loop who the fuck do you think you're talking to_ as he starts his first lap. He does the single with both arms up, as if he's raising the difficulty, just to be an ass. 

"Double, and less sass, please," Victor calls dryly across the ice. 

Yuri makes it to the triple before an inopportune knee wobble has him touching down, and even that fills him with disgust at himself. Some fucking world champion, all right. 

"Now, now, doubles and singles are fine to show me the state of your routine," Victor says, skating over and stopping himself neatly, unimpressed by Yuri's snarl. His expression softens a little when Yuri's scowl only deepens. "Listen to me, really listen. What jumps you can do, what spins, it's different every day, yes?"

" _Yes_ ," Yuri spits, frustration like claws dragging down the inside of his chest. "It's fucking _awful_." Every single time he has to wonder if he's going to land on his skates or on his face, even techniques he thought of as secure years ago, and it's a constant fray of his nerves. 

"Your body is trying to tell you what it can handle," Victor says, matter-of-fact. "You have to learn how to listen, unless you'd like to also have knees which double as barometers. I assure you, the day before it snows, it is _not_ enjoyable."

Yuri wants desperately to argue, but it's so fucking logical. "When you start to sound sensible, I know the world is ending."

"Yurio's hard life," Victor coos. "What's your short's theme again?"

"Renewal," Yuri says, voice flat as if his theme were 'kumquats.' Yakov came up with it, and Yuri wants to beg Victor to change it, but he's sure Victor will only do that if he thinks it's his own idea, so Yuri will have to play it smart. 

"I see." Victor wrinkles his nose ever so slightly. "Go on, I suppose."

Yuri drags himself through the steps, replacing his quads and triples with doubles and singles, but having at least enough pride left to land those sharp and square. He can't feel the theme at all, though, and he doesn't even try. He's not a tree growing new limbs or a stretching vine or a crocus unfurling from the snow, or any of the other springtime images Yakov and Lilia have been barking at him. He's a snowman with his bones melting underneath; one tap will send him crumbling to the ground. 

"Yes, that is dreadful," Victor says, one finger against his lips. "Are you sure your theme isn't 'I hate this sport' or perhaps 'please put me out of my misery?'"

"I would skate the fuck out of _that_ theme," Yuri says with longing. And then, just because he doesn't hate everything quite enough yet, he adds, "Of course _you_ could do better."

"Of course I could," Victor answers. 

And then he does. He skates it far more passably on the first try than Yuri's been doing, and the triples aren't the difference. It's Victor's half-closed eyes and the reach of his arms all the way down to his fingertips, as if he's just woken up from an excellent nap and is stretching himself awake. It's like some dreamy ad for a sultry new cologne. _Renewal_. 

"Lovely," Yuri drawls, arms crossed. "Want to trade? What's yours, anyway?"

"The transformative power of love," Victor answers, pushing sweat-damp hair out of his face, and Yuri can't tell whether he's joking or not. 

Yuri actually considers it, that's how bad his is. "I'll trade if you will."

Victor laughs loud enough to echo off the ice, skating close enough to ruffle Yuri's hair, knocking some strands loose from his bun. "Show me again, I want to think."

They keep at it until Yuri's stomach growls loud enough for Victor to hear halfway across the ice, and Victor says sheepishly that he forgot about teenagers. They pack it up and hit the nearest combini before starting the walk home. They should at least jog, but it's so hot already, and Yuri's still eating his second onigiri. Victor only bought a bottle of lemon water for himself, but he doesn't scold Yuri for the carbs. 

"Tomorrow we'll eat first," Victor says. "I'm sure Katsuki-mama will make us something we can just heat up for ourselves without bothering anyone." That's the cutesy name Victor's been using for Yuuri's mother lately, Katsuki-mama, and Yuri's sure that soon Victor will shorten it to just Mama. "I'm a terrible coach still, aren't I?" Victor chuckles to himself. "If you'd fainted on the ice, Yuuri would never let me hear the end of it."

"I can take care of myself," Yuri mumbles through a full mouth. He swallows. "And shouldn't you be worried about yourself, Mr. Big Comeback? You can't waste every morning on me."

Victor's arm wraps around Yuri's back, loose enough that Yuri could shrug him off easily if he wanted. Yuri doesn't bother. "You're never a waste, kitten."

"Gross, old man," Yuri says without any heat, more invested in finishing his snack. He tries not to think about how Victor's arm is at a much less awkward downward angle across his shoulders than it used to be last year.


End file.
